Collage ('col-large' not 'col-ledge') Link Show

Ex student Nicky Dothwaite, who did the dot collages 2 years ago, Lewis Hamilton and Simon Cowell, has now done 3 more, this time, not dots, but large scale collages of Jenson Button, Kimi Raikkonen and David Coulthard to unveil in the Link gallery this week. All interactive arts students were invited to submit a piece of collage based work to accompany Nikki's work.

As I've been working predominantly in paper so far this year and mostly in some for of collage, I thought I'd put something in. I fancied the chances of the balloon casts to be honest. I'd been looking for a reason to be doing them and this seemed like a good opportunity to actually do something with 'em rather than just make them like a little robot but not know why.

At this point what I had looked like this:


I has lots of them, and they looked alright stacked up like they are. However, problem número UNO = stability. I would manage to keep them in this position for maybe a few hours before a person or a breeze or a sneeze on the other side of the studio knocked them over. Not good prospects for exhibition time now! So, time for some options..My brain was here:

Trying to work with maybe a plinth, hanging, stacking or even building...


I'd have needed more of them to be able to make that one possible and I definately didn't have time for that. Instead, hanging was the front runner in the saftey and practicailiy categories and eventually, after stringing on 50 balloon casts to a string this is what I ended up displaying....

Fishing wire and suspension makes them look like they are floating, it looks a bit odd, but thats what I wanted to see...does it work? I'm still not sure. It was looming and it was alternative for a "collage" but perhaps that's what it needed to be, maybe it should be bigger and touch the floor...It appears to only have made me wish I'd worked harder on this, when it comes down I'll put my brain to work...and put in the time! Collages-ho!